Sig Christenson: Flying the friendly skies

FOB NORMANDY, Iraq – So you think the San Antonio airport is a hassle?

Sure, there’s all that traffic to fight through, careful decisions to make about that carry-on bag, and you have to take your shoes off at the X-Ray machine.

But that’s a day at the beach compared to this place, and I’d take it in a heartbeat.

Photographer Nicole Fruge and I are on a forward operating base near the Iranian border. As bases go, it isn’t much. It’s kind of like Judge Roy Bean’s wisp of a town west of the Pecos – a few dirt streets, old, decrepit buildings and a mural of Saddam Hussein with one major improvement – someone drew a Mickey Mouse face over what used to be his head.

In some ways, that’s a perfect symbol for FOB Normandy.

Home to a hardy band of 1st Cavalry Division soldiers who are used to camping out, it’s rustic, dusty and low-rent. The morale center computer room has laptops that are missing keys and the spacebar. Ever try writing without a spacebar? You get a giant run-on sentence.

The computers sit on wooden desks crafted into cubicles of sorts. Some carpenter with a power saw, hammer and nails cobbled it together. We sit in flimsy plastic seats.

Our dining hall is nearby, the food passable. So far I haven’t had a MASH moment where I examine the food with a microscope to identify it.

You’d be surprised to know there are a lot of mouse traps out here, and that they work. The one near a male shower made a new kill a couple of days ago, if the sour odor is any indication. There are cats here as well. I don’t know if they work or not, but I did see two of them fighting.

I passed them after we got word that our flight out had been scrubbed. A sandstorm grounded our helicopter, at least for the night, and that means another day at FOB Normandy.

This is where our problem comes in and, for that matter, the problem every soldier, contractor and journalist faces in the Iraq theater of war. We had an Air Mobility Request in for our flight, which means we had guaranteed seats. Once you ask for an AMR, three days pass before you are certain to fly. You can try to get on “Space A,” meaning an empty seat, but that’s a lot like flying standby on Southwest.

It’s a crapshoot, and you could be standing around a long time.

Back home, you’re at least standing near a bar or a restaurant, with a nice chair to sit in, some ESPN to watch and air conditioning blowing on your head.

Out here at Normandy you sit on a rock, on concrete, perhaps sand, looking through the blackened landing zone area hoping to hear the happy sound of spinning helicopter blades.

This is a backwater of sorts, given all the other bases there are in Iraq, and all you can do is hope those birds show up. The troops here didn’t ask for this assignment, or the hassle.

They aren’t offered apologies or complaint forms. They instead pull up their rucks, grab their helmets and rifles, and walk back to their hooches.

There, they’ll fall asleep on their cots.

Next time you start to complain about how lousy the airline is, look around first. If there’s a soldier nearby, you might want to shut up.